1. Field of Invention
Apparatuses and methods consistent with the present invention relate to broadcasting signal receiving and channel scanning, and more particularly, to a broadcasting signal receiving apparatus and a channel scanning method for scanning channels that a user wants.
2. Description of the Related Art
A digital broadcast is used to transmit several broadcast programs per channel using compression technology with high channel utilization unlike an analog broadcast.
For example, in a case of using a modulation such as 64 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM), 256 QAM and the like, it is possible to transmit at most several tens of programs through one physical channel. Virtual channel numbers of a type which couple two numbers using a dash “-” are used to discriminate among a plurality of programs provided from several channels or each channel. For example, when the virtual channel numbers are 11-1, 11-2, 11-3, 11-4, . . . , a number ahead of “-”, that is, “11” indicates a major channel, and a number behind the “-” indicates a minor channel.
The major channel represents the physical channel band into which the program can be transmitted while discriminating a broadcasting program provider. The minor channel represents a signal vector region to which the program can be provided via the channel while discriminating the plurality of programs to be provided via the identical channel.
Herein, the original channel number is associated with the frequency band of the physical channel. However, digital TVs use the major channel number such as the analog channel number, regardless of the frequency band sequence of the physical channel, for the convenience of viewers accustomed with the channel number in a conventional analog broadcast. Therefore, the physical channel number generally is not identical to the major channel number. Herein, the physical channel number generally means a multiplexer (MUX) number.
Meanwhile, the digital TV generally has an automatic channel scan function. Herein, the automatic channel scan function sets the channels by scanning from the beginning to the end of the frequency range available for the TV. With such functionality, the user can seek and set all channels by performing the channel scan automatically even if the user does not know the frequency of the channel.
However, for the digital TV which can provide a plurality of services in one physical channel, it takes a lot of time to perform the automatic channel scan.
Consequently, in a case that the user knows the MUX number of the channel or the channel frequency already, the automatic channel scan function can cause unnecessary scanning over the full frequency range.
For the purpose of addressing this problem, a TV has been introduced that is capable of manually scanning the channel. However, in this related art TV, the user has to scan the frequencies one at a time, even if the user knows the frequency already.